


i’ve been on fire dreaming of you

by anupturnedboat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Coming of Age, Crushes, F/M, First Love, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Tragic Romance, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: If he were to kiss her, she thinks she might fly right out of her skin. She might growl against his neck, her bones shifting, and melting and reforming until she is not a girl, but a wolf.





	i’ve been on fire dreaming of you

**Author's Note:**

> Section titles come from Blue Monday by badass poet Diane Wakoski, whose work I stumbled on over twenty years ago and have never forgotten.

**_I. there is electricity dripping from me like cream_ **

Gendry is hammering out the dents in a breastplate, and she watches as he swings his hammer, his arm and chest and shoulders move with precision and force. It would be graceful except for that stupid pinched look he gets when he’s concentrating.

His shaggy hair hangs in his eyes, and she imagines pushing it back with her fingers, feeling his warm breath on her face. 

The thought is a curious squiggle low in her belly and she bites the inside of her cheek uncertainly.

When they reach Winterfell, she thinks, there will be a place for him at the forge. She will bring him lunch and they will watch Ser Rodrik in the training yard, and scoff at the new recruits when they land on their asses. When the snow begins to melt they will ride out past the castle keep through the Wolfswood all the way to the ruins on Sea Dragon Point. They will feast on salmon and clams and she will tell him all of old Nans stories about the first men. 

She drops from the roof, light as a cat and lands beside him.

“You should be abed girl,” he says without looking up from his work. 

She pinches his arm, she’s hardly seen him at all since she’s been stuck in the servants quarters, and all he wants to do is pound on that stupid breastplate. He swats her away, but she easily deflects.

“If I was abed I wouldn’t be here telling you that Vargo Hoat has returned with prisoners.”

“And why would I care about that?”

“They are my fathers men. If we free them they will take us home.”

“Free them?” he scowls, finally looking up from the breastplate, “how are you going to do that?”

“I have a plan.”

“Course you do,” he sighs impatiently, turning back to his tools, “Leave me alone girl,” he says, “I’ve got work to do.”

He’s _stupid stupid stupid_ she seethes.

And he can stay here with the bloody mummers and slobbery Vargo Hoat for all she cares. 

And how dare he call her girl as if she were some simpering little thing, as if he were anything other than a stupid bullheaded boy.

Later, in the Godswood, she moves her feet and her arms, swift and sudden, just as Syrio Forel had taught her. She imagines her broomstick Needle sliding right between Gendry’s ribs. She’d kick his feet out from under him and show him her sharp teeth. He wouldn’t call her a girl then.

**_II. Blue daggers tip and are juggled on my palms_ **

Gendry’s eyes slide past hers, to the blood on her hands, and then up to the rain dripping down her neck into her hastily pulled on tunic.

Hot Pie is breathing heavy and worrying over the dead man but she hardly hears him.

They had come, _Gendry_ had come, he hadn’t let her down. There had been a twinge of doubt lurking under her ribcage, if he hadn’t come -

She swings into her saddle, they follow, and it feels a little like she is flying. 

They do not stop, not even when their backsides hurt, or when the rain comes down in unrelenting sheets. Not when they are tired or hungry. Not when that annoying voice in her head worries they might be lost. They must make it to Riverrun. 

She knows what will happen if they are caught. The sword Gendry stole for her won’t be able to stop them from losing their hands and feet to Roose Bolton’s men. Maybe more.

But soon she can’t keep her eyes open and Gendry pulls her off her horse. For a moment his hands are on her hips and she’s looking up into his blue eyes, and not for the first time she marvels at how long his lashes are. Suddenly, unbidden, she remembers how he’d gotten out of bed, naked, just a few days before. She hadn’t lingered on it then, but now-

“I’ll take first watch,” he says looking at her queerly. The dark hides the stupid rush of blood she feels rising up her neck to the tops of her ears.

She dreams she is wolf, not a girl. The rain sluices off of her thick fur as her paws rip through the muddy ground. Her heart is strong and fast and she is flying.

**_III. there is love dripping from me I can’t use_ **

He’s drunk and smelly but she scoots over and makes room for him anyway, their earlier quarrel still clamors around in her head. 

There is a bothersome flutter in her chest. He’d told the old drunk downstairs that she was his sister, and it had made her want to whack him upside the head. 

She doesn’t want to be his sister.

Then they had said stupid cross words, and it felt like they weren’t even friends anymore.

When she’s sure he’s asleep she rolls over and traces the familiar lines and curves of his face with her eyes. Her real brothers have never had such interesting faces.

Light as a feather she touches his cheek, “Gendry,” she whispers but he doesn’t move. She keeps her fingers there watching the way his eyelashes flutter.

He must be dreaming, he mumbles something that she can’t understand and then grasps her fingers with his own dragging her palm to his lips. 

This is a dangerous feeling, a tightly bound coil unwinding. It surprises her and she almost gasps, but then she remembers the men sleeping all around them. 

“Gendry you dummy, you’re dreaming,” she whispers, and he kisses her palm, as if he’s kissing her lips, once, twice, before rolling back over.

In the morning he is his usual grumpy self so he probably doesn’t remember. “What?” he barks, his brow furrowed, when he catches her looking at his lips, her hand twitching at her side.

**_IV. Blue paint cracks in my arteries and sends titanium floating into my bones_ **

The rain is relentless and cold and there is little cover atop High Heart. It makes her forget all about ghosts.

They string up frayed tarps over low hanging branches, and gather soggy brush for fires.

Gendry finds a large weathered piece of wood that was probably once part of a wagon, and their makeshift shelter only has a few drips. Ned hovers nearby, shivering.

“Only room for two,” Gendry, says over his shoulder. “You can bunk with Lem and Watty.”

Ned smiles wanly, before following Lem, and Arya smacks Gendry on the arm.

“What was that for?” he yelps.

“Why don’t you like Ned?” she asks as he starts to peel off his boots. 

“Who said I don’t like ‘em?”

She drops her belt and shucks off her jacket. “Stop being jealous. He’s not so bad, it wouldn’t kill you to be kind.” She pulls her tunic over her head, and when she looks to him he’s gaping at her like some kind of ridiculous carp.

For a moment, the damp tunic lingers in her fingers, and she realizes that she is only in her threadbare small clothes and breeches, and her hair is dripping, making wet spots on the thin material. 

She wonders if he will kiss more than her palm if she touches his cheek. She’s not sure if she wants him too or not.

Then his eyes flicker to her lips and she thinks, _oh_.

If he were to kiss her, she thinks she might fly right out of her skin. She might growl against his neck, her bones shifting, and melting and reforming until she is not a girl, but a wolf.

“We should get some sleep,” he finally says, a gruffness in his voice that makes her want to keep looking at his mouth.

**_X. You are dead: wound like a paisley shawl, I can’t shake you out of the sheets, your name is wedged in every corner of the sofa_ **

The wolves have returned to Winterfell, she thinks, a lump in her throat, seeing Jon, like this, is almost too much.When she finds him in the Godswood later, she lets him hold her, and bites the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions in check. It’s been so long since anyone she’s loved held her like this.

But for now, she breathes, in and out, in and out, her breath frosting before her. There is much to be done, and there is no room for-

the dead, which he, Gendry, is supposed to be. She’d stopped thinking about his lips and his arms and his stupid blue eyes long ago.

 _A girl shouldn’t tell such lies, even to herself,_ a voice that sounds like Jaqen H'ghar chides.

She lets out a breath she doesn’t even know she’s holding as he rides by with the tatters of the brotherhood. He looks mostly the same, still awkward in a saddle, and that pinched look that she knows means he’s trying to concentrate, probably trying not fall off his mount. He’s still a city boy (she doesn’t know if she is still the wolf in girls clothing that he knows), and maybe it’s better that he hasn’t noticed her. She shrinks back into the crowd, becoming faceless as she follows behind, weaving in and out of Northmen, her eyes never leaving his broad shoulders.

She could strike at any moment, slip her dagger into the meat of his thigh before he even knew what was happening. He’s got a hammer strung across his back, an unwieldy thing that he’d not pull free before bleeding out. When Jon and Daenerys Targaryen reach Sansa, she slips further back, she will find Jon later when there are not so many eyes.

Perhaps, she will find Gendry after, and perhaps she won’t want to look at his mouth, or his shoulders, or into his eyes or anything else.

**XI. You paint my body blue. On the balcony in the soft muddy night**

“You should tell him,” Sansa says from behind.

It’s not what she is expecting, and there is a sudden tightness in her chest, that she doesn’t allow to travel to her face. It is an uneasy feeling, annoyance mixed the guilt, it makes her blood run hot. She’s looking at the ruins of Winterfell’s forge, and Sansa’s got that look on her face like she knows everything.

She can’t see him from here, but she is certain he is there, and she has spent all morning twisting his words, his proposal, around.

“He should know that you are planning to leave with Daenerys Targaryen’s army,” Sansa says.

 _Ha_ , Arya thinks, Sansa doesn’t know half as much as she thinks she does. She’s never planned on being in an army, she’s a lone wolf, and that is how she’s planning on finding and killing Cersei Lannister.

Perhaps she’ll take her head, and drop it at Daenerys Targaryens feet and end the war before it’s even begun.

Sansa huffs at her silence. “I don’t know you feel about him little sister, but I know you never care for anyone half way. And anyone can see how he feels about you, if you are going to break his heart do it clean, now, before you ride off.”

He is Lord Gendry Baratheon now, but he’s still a smith and she finds him in the forge just as she thought she would. He looks dejected and she isn’t sure if it’s because of her or the state of the forge.

“Your forge can be rebuilt,” she says and he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Christ Arya! You nearly gave me a heart attack skulking around like that. You need to wear a bell or something,” he complains, “besides it’s not mine, my lady, it’s yours.”

She shrugs, “It’s more yours than mine, you’ve already spent more time here than any Stark.”

He gapes at her like he has half a mind to say something more, then snaps his mouth shut because perhaps he knows better. The tension is so palpable, that the impassive face she has fine tuned to perfection almost falters, she almost turns back. 

Instead, she finds herself saying, “Come, there is something I want to show you.”

They ride away without anyone paying them any mind and only stop when gnarled roots impede their progress. They tie the horses to a tree and he follows her through the tangled terrain that is surprisingly still familiar. They come to a rocky cave, and his brows rise in confusion.

“My brothers used to hide out here when we were children,” she explains, “no girls allowed, but I followed them and commandeered it for myself.”

“Sounds like you.”

“It used to be my favorite place in the world.”

They step inside and its smaller and less magical than she remembers, but the etchings are still on the walls, and she runs her fingers over them, still wondering at their meanings 

His eyes find her in the dark. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was drunk and, full of myself and I shouldn’t have-“

“Did you mean it?” she interrupts and she feels so unlike herself. What does it matter? She’s going to leave anyway.

“Course I did,” he swallows. “Maybe not the lady part.” She imagines he’s waiting for a rebuke, or an argument at the very least. It makes her sad all over again.

She wants to tell him that she never wanted to hurt him, that there is a special place in her heart that is all blue and soft and _him_. That it scares her. That she is not ready. That there are hard things she must do.

Instead she reaches for his face and kisses him before either of them think better of it. She puts all of her emotions into her lips, her fingers, her breath, hoping he will feel the things she can’t say, and know, and not hate her for it.

He’s unsure and pulls away, his forehead resting against hers, but she knots his leather vest in her fingers, pulling him closer, and grinds her hips against his.

He moans into her mouth and it makes her want to press against him even more. She’s never been desired before, it feels a little like flying.

He hoists her up, his hands under her thighs, and she and wraps her legs around his waist. They stumble back against the rocky wall of the cave. She wants to keep kissing him, to never leave this place, to let the world burn, but he sets her down breathing hard.

He’s about to say something and she can’t tell him yet, she _can’t._ So she kisses him harder this time and pulls off his vest and then works her way down the front of his breeches.

He slips her jacket off of her shoulders, and soon they are laying on their discarded clothing.

He runs a palm up her bare thigh and she growls _yes,_ biting down on the inside of her cheek.

It’s slower this time, and with every thrust she feels her thighs falling wider apart for him. A delicious heat ebbs, high and fast, then crests and she arches up against him.

He kisses her slow and sloppy, and when she crosses her ankles behind his back he groans against her collarbone.

After, they are quiet and she can hear him thinking. She wants to hold this moment just a little longer, before it breaks and scatters, before she has to tell him.

“You’re leaving,” he says sparing her from having to say it.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In the morning.”

If he has any thoughts about that he keeps them to himself. 

“Don’t follow me,” she says as tenderly as she can.

He scowls at her in the dark and its so like him that it makes her want to smile fondly but she keeps her face blank.

“Stay here, look after my sister and Bran. Rebuild the forge. Then, no matter what happens you ride for Storms End. Promise.”

“Because you're not coming back,” he surmises with a shake of his head, not promising anything at all.

“Probably not,” she says cold as she can, taking Sansa’s advice after all.

Sandor doesn’t say anything, but she can feel his sideways glances. She keeps her eyes on the road ahead. She will do this thing. She will do it for her father, for Robb and mother, Rickon, and all the others. For Gendry, who lives in the soft part of her that is both wolf and girl, the part that is never coming back.


End file.
